Wednesday, July 6

Alp Luachra

Hi everyone! A short Into the Paranormal post today since I'm hard at work writing Book 2 of the Hacked Investigations series! If you haven't yet, I'd love if you could vote for Techno Crazed for Goodreads Best Book Covers 2011. Thank you to everyone who has so far! I really appreciate the support.

Anyways, today we're stepping into Irish mythology to look at the Alp Luachra, an evil and very greedy fairy. They are often found by the side of a stream when a person falls asleep. Aside from that, they're invisible. They take the form of a newt and crawl down the sleeping person's throat to eat the contents in their stomach. Regardless of how much they eat, they're always hungry.

In the book Beside the Fire by Douglas Hyde, he tells about someone who got rid of an Alp Luachra by eating a lot of salted meat without anything to drink before falling asleep by the stream. The fairy crawled down the man's throat, only to scramble into the water due to thirst. Here's a link to the story, if you'd like to read it.

What do you think of the Alp Luachra? Does it make you think twice about sleeping beside a stream?